


Like an Ever Skipping Record

by unsettled



Series: And How it Works is This: [6]
Category: Inception (2010), RocknRolla (2008)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-03
Updated: 2010-12-03
Packaged: 2017-10-13 12:06:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/137171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unsettled/pseuds/unsettled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are a million ways it could have gone, a million ways it does go, but none of them last.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like an Ever Skipping Record

This is how it goes:

Johnny whines and wheedles and pouts and fusses. These things sit too well on his face and Yusuf is annoyed. Is tired. God, he's tired. He's been dragging himself through the last few days, trying to find what it is that's missing from his latest compound that's causing it to not _work_. To send a quarter of the test subjects in convulsions when they wake – brief, hardly life threatening, but still. And he's getting nowhere and he knows, he _knows_ , that if he doesn't make himself sleep he's going to make an error that's just plain stupid.

And Johnny wants to go to some show, some band he's aflutter about, that will be loud noise and nothing more to Yusuf, where he'll feel oddly out of place and sit by the bar and end up waiting for Johnny or Eames to come back to him. To remember him. They'll grin, flushed with excitement and the lights catching in their faces, in their eyes, lighting them up and hollowing them out and making Yusuf wonder for a moment what they see when they look at him.

Yusuf's not normally given over to such thoughts.

He's tired.

He's tired, and so he sends them off. Waves them away, flops down on the bed and stares at the ceiling for a moment before he closes his eyes. He feels the lightest press of lips on his forehead, but he doesn't open his eyes. It might have been Eames. It might have been Johnny. He's not sure.

The door closes behind them. He sleeps.

He sleeps. And then the phone rings, and it's a voice he doesn't recognize. Doesn't know. Doesn't care to be hearing when they begin to speak.

No.

 _Breathe. Quiet breaths, fast asleep, asleep, no thoughts but dreams._

This is how it goes:

They'd surprised Johnny with the tickets, Yusuf and Eames. Had hidden them and made excuses all week for why they couldn't go with Johnny to the show. Had completely convinced him he was going on his own. And it was worth it, to see the look on his face when he stumbled into the kitchen and set his coffee mug straight down on the three tickets fanned out at his place. Three tickets.

Was worth the look. Was more than worth the grin.

And maybe Yusuf doesn't care one way or another about the music, maybe it's really not his kind of bar, maybe he winds up leaning against the bar watching the two of them dance – but how can he not enjoy that, enjoy Johnny's breathless excitement, enjoy Eames wrapped around him, enjoy seeing the sweet, brief kiss Johnny steals on the dance floor, and he knows what those taste like.

They almost walk home, no matter the distance; but it's raining, lightly, and Eames insists his shirt will be ruined if it gets rained on. Yusuf thinks this might be a good thing, but he keeps his mouth shut. It can always disappear in the laundry. Or maybe Jonny will take to wearing it as he has some of Yusuf's things, and once he's seen Johnny drowning in a shirt two sizes too big for him, sleepy eyed, mussed hair, sleep creases on his face, that shirt is sacred.

They take a cab.

No.

 _REM. Watch those eyelids stay shut, watch the eyes roll and twitch and search behind them, blind, blank. There's nothing to see here._

This is how it goes:

Johnny's been talking about the concert for weeks. Weeks. Weeks and bloody weeks and if Yusuf never hears the band's name again he will be perfectly happy, _thank you very much_. Not that he can't help smiling at Johnny's enthusiasm. When Johnny's excited like this, he – lights up isn't quite right. It's like suddenly all those conflicting thoughts and emotions and sharp memories have had a blanket thrown over them – they're not gone, but dulled, out of sight, and instead it's this thing almost like joy that fills Johnny up, that presses at his skin and draws Eames in to nuzzle at his heck, draws Yusuf in to tilt his chin up and bite gently at his lips. It's irresistible, and Johnny is already irresistible enough as it is.

Which is why Johnny refuses to acknowledge it when he catches something. When he starts coughing more than from smoke inhaled wrong. When he gets dizzy standing up. When he's burning up, turning fever bright eyes to Yusuf is utter denial.

He knows how badly Johnny wants to go; but he can hardly stand. Johnny knows this. Knows this. He closes his eyes and curls on his side under the covers, misery drowning out the anger. Whispers softly, hoarsely into Yusuf's throat, "But I wanted to go so _badly_ ," tears behind his voice, young and mournful and sad in a way that tugs at Yusuf.

"I know, kitten," he says. The cat jumps onto the bed, heads straight for the hollow of Johnny's belly, curled up against it, purring loudly enough to be heard next door, Yusuf is sure. He flips off the light.

Eames is already at the computer, finding tickets for their next concert. He'll let Cobb know that both of them have prior commitments for that date.

When the watch the news the next night, it's Eames who reels Johnny in and hugs him too tight.

No.

 _There's the prick of the needle in your arm, in your veins, sweet seductive poison coating your blood cells, turning you bruised blue from the inside out. Bruised and spoiled and rotting._

This is how it went:

They were walking home in the dark, the streetlight shattering on the wet pavement, like the world was turned upside down, like they were walking with the sky beneath their feet. They were all a little tipsy, a little flushed and talkative, Johnny's mouth and hands running too fast for comprehension. Eames had an arm slung around him, and Yusuf couldn't be sure quite who was supporting who, but their feet kept getting tangled up and Yusuf had to come to the rescue more than once, take the weight of both of them sprawled forward against him rather than the sidewalk.

He doesn't remember hearing the shot. Isn't that supposed to mean something? That's what he's thinking when he's crouched over Johnny, Johnny, sprawled on the pavement because Yusuf couldn't catch him this time; except he had, he had, it was all this blood he couldn't catch fast enough, all this bitterly sharp liquid bubbling from Johnny's chest, coating the inside of his mouth, until he can't keep it in any more, blood running down his chin and no matter how many times Yusuf wipes it away, it returns; only his hands are leaving even worse stains on Johnny's skin, on his hair, on his thin, fragile chest. Eames has his hands cupped on either side of Johnny's face, only that's no good for holding him steady when Eames' hands are shaking so badly. When Eames is none too steady himself, lying on his stomach with his face just over Johnny's, cursing him out and begging for him to hold on, to _hold on for us, love, hold on, they're coming, wait till you can hear them no don't you dare close your eyes_ and Yusuf can't find any words at all, can't find anything in him at all except for the treacherous, traitorous thought that _this is a dream_. A dream, a dream, a – he fumbles for his totem but it isn't on him, and maybe that's a sign, maybe…  
 _  
No._

 _Breathe in, breathe out; open you eyes. There's no more slick slide of memory in your veins anymore. Time's up, and the dead should stay buried.  
_  
Yusuf blinks at the ceiling. This is how it went: some gang had gone wild and started firing at anything that moved, and they should have taken a cab. Johnny had turned white and dry and empty there on the sidewalk, a boneless husk by the time they got him to the hospital, and all that was left was for a doctor to pronounce the fact to the world. Eames had come far closer than Yusuf cares to think about, had never regained his rolling, teasing stride, had never regained the ability to walk without a limp anywhere but in dreams. Had hung around, hungry and aching and as blind to Yusuf's pain as he was not to the empty place at the table, the hollow between their bodies where Johnny belonged, the constant crying of the cat. The silence that was lacking some important quality, the scent of Johnny fading from the sheets, and Yusuf caught him holding a particular shirt once, draped over his hand like a limp, dead thing.

When he ran, it already felt like he'd been gone for months.

There's far too much empty space in this house now. The cat wanders from room to room and always, remains disappointed. Yusuf has shut off the living room, has closed the door a final time on the bedroom. Those aren't rooms he needs anymore. The curtains in the kitchen have gone nearly grey with dust, but Yusuf never moves them anyway. His chemicals line most surfaces now. There's a lounger near the table, and a pasiv on it, and while he's not as trapped as Cobb, there are days he thinks about substituting a different compound for the one in the machine.

And if he looks up, every now and then and stares at the air, stares like he's seeing the ghosts of laughter and affection and things that were never meant to be, well.

There's no one to notice but the cat.


End file.
